IPv6: A Brief Overview
IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) is the latest version of IP, the fundamental communication protocol used for transmitting data across the internet. IPv6 was developed to address the limited address space of IPv4 and to provide a more efficient and secure way of routing traffic across the internet.
The adoption of IPv6 has been gaining momentum in recent years, and many major internet service providers and content providers now support IPv6 connectivity. As of September 2024, Google reported that the adoption rate in the United States was approximately 50% and 33% in Canada, and this trend is expected to continue.
For class action settlements, the implications of IPv6 adoption are significant. A substantial number of claims are now being submitted from IPv6 formatted IP addresses. In fact, ClaimScore has observed that up to 20.5% of claims in previous cases were submitted from IPv6 IP addresses.
The Importance of IPv6 Addresses for Class Action Settlement Approval
Given this increased adoption of IPv6, it’s crucial that claims processes can accommodate claimants using IPv6 addresses. Firstly, this is a matter of fairness and equity, as all individuals affected by the same issue should receive the compensation they are entitled to. Class members have legal rights, and proper notice ensures that they are informed about the lawsuit, allowing them to make informed decisions about their involvement. In addition, class actions are meant to streamline the legal process by consolidating many similar individual claims into one lawsuit, and excluding legitimate members could lead to multiple individual lawsuits and would be less efficient and more costly for the judicial system.
Perhaps most importantly, courts require that class action notices be disseminated in a manner that reasonably ensures all potential class members are informed to comply with procedural due process and to ensure that the settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate. Thus, a lack of ability to accommodate claims from IPv6 addresses could potentially lead to a judge rejecting the settlement.
In fact, claims from IPv6 addresses are, as a percentage of valid claims, more likely to be legitimate than those from IPv4s, based on ClaimScore’s data. This is because they are much less common among hijacked IP addresses, which are “for sale” on the dark web and used for bot activity. So it is likely that a claim management system that cannot accommodate IPv6 addresses is keeping out legitimate class members.
In a recent case, the claims administrator's claim management system was not IPv6 compatible, so nearly 25,000 claims were rejected because they were submitted with "empty" IP addresses. It's likely that a substantial number of those claims were legitimate and were rejected solely because certain systems were not fully up to speed with IPv6 compatibility.
Conclusion
Given the increasing adoption of IPv6 IP addresses, it's imperative for claims administrators and other legal professionals to ensure their systems are compatible with this new format. Rejecting or failing to accommodate claims based solely on the IP address format could lead to the exclusion of legitimate claims and potentially undermine the fairness of class action settlements.
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